Calling all members: please comment on our refreshed Strategy

Hi Alison,

If your interested...I’m doing an online talk for the local RSA on the RUH Forest Garden project on Monday evening. It would be lovely if you were able to join us. Here’s the link to sign up.

Event: Gardens for Wellbeing: Mind, Body and Ecology coming together

Date and time: Monday 19 April, 18:00 - 19:00 GMT

Online via Zoom

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/rsa-bath-gardens-for-wellbeing-mind-body-and-ecology-coming-together-tickets-146770523587

Hi Nickie, lovely to hear from you. A local network sounds great. It would be lovely to meet up at some point and hear about your project.

That sounds great. Let’s keep in touch about it.

Alison
http://www.alisonjenkins.co.uk

Hi AlisonI have intentionally kept my diary free from September onwards, so wait and see if I can travel and teach or if I need to continue with the online courses. I have many projects across Europe asking me to carry on with the courses and new venues asking me to run new courses. But my suspicion is I will not travel in 2021. So I definitely have time to organise a course. If you have several people who are interested maybe we can organise a chat and work out some dates and times that suit the majority of you. Very happy to help.
Best wishes

Hi Alison...lovely to find a fellow forest Gardener in Bath. I’m working with a team to set up a FG for well-being at the Royal United Hospital. It sounds like we could set up a local support network in Bath to share top tips and experiences. We’ve been going for about 9 months. I thought we’d have stuff in the ground by now, but despite lots of support I reckon it’ll be at least another 6 months. Lots of hoops doing this stuff in a public space, but there’s been loads of positive spin offs, meeting new collaborators, engaging staff in shaping the project...all sorts of stuff, and eventually we’ll get plants in the ground. Do get in touch, I’d like to join the Facebook group.

Hi Rakesh
Thanks for getting in touch. The course sounds really great. May/June is hopeless for me though as it’s the busiest time of the year. Are you likely to run it again in the Autumn/Winter? It would be amazing for our group to all be able to do it together, we are beginning to realise that there is an awful lot more to consider than we bargained for! Independently Rosie Jones has recently set up a Forest Gardening Bath Facebook page so I’ll see if I can work out how to post details of your course on it. (I can do Instagram but am pretty hopeless with FB!)

It would be great to meet you if you are over in Bath and it would be good to hear about your project here.

all the best

Alison
http://www.alisonjenkins.co.uk

Hi AlisonIf you need any help with your community forest garden, I have an online course coming up in May to help design community forest gardens. The course starts with 2 days on the basics of how to design a forest garden. Plus 8 more sessions where we go step by step in design groups making our real designs. I also include a session on governance, as good clear communication and community engagement is a vital part of any successful community project. As with all my courses they are by conscious contribution, so people pay what they can afford and feel is fair. So please do encourage many of your team to join. Anyone who studies with me is invited to join a network, where if they want help after the course we run regular skills shares, as well as give people the opportunity to show their designs and get advice or feedback. There are often people who are not part of a project on this course too, so they often end up helping people who do have a project. So you get supported through the course.

If this is interesting to you, feel free to contact me and I will be happy to answer any questions.

BTW I hope to get to Bath later this year to help facilitate a project at Fairfield House. Perhaps there is a possibility to connect the projects.

Good luck with the project

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Following on from the hugely popular series of courses last year, we would like to offer these courses again.
INTRODUCTION: How to design a forest garden
Sat 8th and Sun 9th May 2021
FULL DESIGN COURSE: An easy step by step guide to designing your own forest garden
Tue 11, 18, 25 May, 1, 8, 15, 22, 29th June
Imagine your garden or community space looking as lovely as a woodland edge. Imagine that on top of looking wonderfully wild, it produces an abundance of nutrient dense food and will ultimately need very little digging, weeding, manual watering or pest control - all in harmony with animals and other beings (eco friendly and vegan). This is ‘an edible forest garden’.
Forest gardening is a way of growing food where nature does most of the work for you. Modelled on natural woodland, crops are grown in different layers from high and medium sized canopy to roots, ground cover and climbers. And its not just food and medicine you will get from the forest garden, there are many more yields.
Through careful planning plants are chosen which have beneficial effects on each other, attract beneficial insects and create a healthy biodiverse rich system that maintains its own fertility. Once established, your main task will be harvesting!

====== WHAT TO EXPECT =======
This workshop is in 2 parts
The first part gives you the tools you need to design your own forest garden.
The second part will give you an opportunity to design your own place with the help of others. You will also learn how to implement your designs.

=== RECORDINGS ===
All sessions will be recorded, so if you miss a day it will be easy to catch up

====== WHAT TO EXPECT - INTRODUCTION ======
------ How to design a forest garden ------
Sat 8th and Sun 9th May 2021
9am to 2pm (including 2 or 3 breaks)

This section of the course you will learn about the basics of designing a forest garden.
You will get to understand
- What a forest garden is
- What kinds of yields can you get from it (food or otherwise)
- How to select the right plants for your environment
- Where to place them to ensure they thrive
- How to ensure you have the right nutrients cycling to ensure good crops
- History of forest gardening
- Why make a food forest
- Layout of a forest garden
- Making multi-functional pathways
- Creating abundance and resilience
- Low maintenance food growing
- Patterns in nature for forest gardens
- Understanding and maximising edge
YOU CAN ATTEND JUST THE FIRST 2 SESSIONS AS A STAND ALONE COURSE

====== WHAT TO EXPECT - FOREST GARDEN DESIGN ======
------ A step by step guide to designing your own forest garden ------
This is mainly for people who want to make a real forest garden design (their own or help someone else). This course is well suited for people working together to design a community forest garden.
During this part you will
- Make maps and gather the right information to make a design
- Identify your and/or your communities needs and needs of the land
- Learn how to implement your designs (where to start)
- Make a succession plan (how the forest garden grows and matures by itself)
- Design how you get yield from year one
- Think about any maintenance
- Think about how you harvest your yields
- Water management
- Tree and plant guilds
- We will also discuss how to work well with other people in a community project

====== LEAD FACILITATOR ======
The course will be led by Rakesh “Rootsman Rak” - experienced Permaculture designer, teacher and Forest Garden specialist, yoga teacher and homeopath. He has been growing food since he was a child, and has been designing and teaching edible landscaping, permaculture, forest gardening, etc since 2009. Rakesh has designed and implemented forest gardens from small-scale private gardens and schools, to farms, community gardens, communal nature gardens, as well as designing a forest garden on part of a 30-hectare ecovillage in Croatia.
====== TESTIMONIALS FROM FOREST GARDENING COURSE 2020 ======
Absolutely inspirational! Rakesh's unique way of teaching enabled us to develop our knowledge and skills whatever our starting point. I can't wait to put it all into practice now! (Sally)
The most interactive and engaging workshop I’ve ever been on. Rakesh is an absolute inspiration and I always feel motivated to get out in my garden and create something new towards my future forest garden. Thank you thank you so much 🙂 (Rak)
When I first heard of the idea of a Forest Garden I was excited by the concept and Rakesh's inspirational teaching enhanced my enthusiasm. I knew very little about plants and growing things before the course: I thought it was something boring old people did. But I now see it as as an exciting way to help bring people together and combat the earth-destroying practices that have come to dominate our lives (Anthony)
Rakesh is a great teacher quite patient with us dullards, has a mastery of the technology currently needed for online training and of course knows his stuff with regards to Forest Garden Design. (Chris)
I acquired a really thorough understanding of the principles of a forest food garden and now feel well equipped to make a design and put it into practice. And it was fun! (Anke)
If You want to be the part of this necessary change we all need to see in the world - just study FG. You will feel reconnected to the Earth, to plants, and to other people. (Dorota)
This is a really good course and I would recommend it to those interested in Forest Gardens. Rakesh gently manages the group and enthusiastically shares his knowledge and skills. (Ruth)

====== COURSE COSTS ======
We want this course to be accessible to all and are therefore working in a conscious contribution system, inviting you to pay what you can afford towards meeting the needs of the facilitator(s). We therefore invite those who can pay more to help those who cannot afford as much.
Please contact us if you have any questions about this.
Suggested contributions for the 2 day introduction
Between £30 and £100
Suggested contributions for the 8 day design course + 2 day introduction
Between £150 to £400
If you cannot afford this then PLEASE get in touch and we will work something out that is mutually beneficial.

====== REGISTRATION ======
To register for this course, please click on the ticket section below and fill in the form (make sure you hit the submit button, after which you will get an email confirmation). If you do not get an email confirmation, have any difficulty filling it in or have any questions please feel free to contact Rakesh
https://forms.gle/JCu7xBfEq3nygzXu6 ( https://forms.gle/JCu7xBfEq3nygzXu6?fbclid=IwAR0VVBT1lLoqbVlRACCBvsytLVoD8ol1x2Hxf-QJxqmJa_-VxMH-uu8X5KM )

A group of us are in the process of setting up a community forest garden just outside Bath. There's a lot more to think about than any of us anticipated and having access to support in the way of guidelines and a mentor would be hugely beneficial and I'm sure would really help the long term sustainability of the project. At the moment we're very much making it up as we go along!

Thanks very much for your support Jo. If you connect me with the Kent gardens and they have some background they can share we can get them on the map? https://nationalforestgardening.org/resources/places-to-visit/

It all sounds fantastic. So glad energy is going into doing this. Wellbeing seems like a brilliant focus and can include food, medicine, recreation and probably everything. Wellbeing for people and all of the nature system together. Story telling- Great to hear other people stories. Really clear aims. I know of three new community forest garden projects wanting to start near me and two existing ones. Thats in East Kent.